Contact me: m.podwill@thedcpost.com Follow: Facebook Twitter

The battle for the Keystone XL pipeline is heating up to a feverishly partisan pitch.

Yes, partisan. Too bad for us, but as long as we endure the reign of this “non-partisan” president, the reason for doing — or not doing — anything is political. And “political” almost always means facilitating the immediate interests of Barack Obama.

We saw it this month when the issue of “women’s health” (or more truthfully, the issue of religious and personal freedom) was bandied by Obama, Sebelius and others. Now, the Keystone is subverted by the same sickly political process.

To be sure, there are manifold issues regarding the pros and cons of this pipeline which could transport some 700 thousand barrels of Canadian crude to American refineries daily.

There are compelling arguments for it. 1) America’s ongoing need for a steady, reliable source of oil 2) Preference for purchasing that oil from Canada instead of dubious Middle East providers 3) The fact that if the Keystone isn’t built, Canada might ship that oil to the Chinese who make no bones about their interest and 4) The enormous economic impact Keystone offers because a) the steady supply of Canadian oil would go far toward keeping our overall energy costs lower and b) construction would provide thousands of jobs (up to 100,000 per a Wall Street Journal editorial on July 7, 2011), and all of them at a time when, despite the rosy recent reports from the Department of Labor, real jobs are sorely needed.

Then too, there was indeed a fundamental argument against construction of the Keystone, when environmentalists insisted that the original pipeline route brought it too close to Nebraska’s Ogallala aquifer, a source of drinking water for neighboring states. Any leakage or malfunction, they argued, could have had catastrophic consequences. So TransCanada Corporation, the pipeline’s intended builder, mapped out a number of alternate routes, each diverting the Keystone from proximity to the aquifer.

That’s a fact. Here’s another one: The US State Department had already signed their approval on the Keystone undertaking. Likewise, their final Environmental Impact Statement, issued in August, 2011, endorsed the project as well.

But none of that seems to matter.

Outrageously, those against the Keystone XL simply morph, like a virus, to newer, fresher reasons for nixing it. For instance, now opponents focus on the relatively poor quality of the Canadian tar sands oil that’s to be conveyed. Or whether or not that oil will be used in America at all — or simply shipped overseas. And this: Their “concern” that the steel used to construct the pipeline is not wholly (100% ) made in America.

What’s really going on here? Why are House Democrats trying so ardently to kill the Keystone with an endless array of game-breaking amendments? The answer to that question brings us back to the original point: it’s all designed to provide political cover for Mr. Obama.

All along the pipeline’s route to approval, Obama has been treading a thin line between two of his most critical constituents: Environmentalists who, as noted, remain against the Keystone. And unions who are for it because it means many jobs for their members.

In his own mind, Obama thinks he’s everything, but he’s clearly no King Solomon. This monarch wannabee is fearful of making a choice — and losing the support of either his green or his union pals. For a political animal like Obama, such is verboten, especially in an election year. So as Congressman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky) said last week, “President Obama and his administration made a decision not to decide.” Or certainly, at the very least, to decide after November 2.

That’s why Obama is trying desperately to delay a definitive pipeline decision. And his Stepford Congressional cronies eagerly do his bidding. Jim Angle, Fox News correspondent got it right in a FoxNews.com article posted February 16. He said: “Democrats want to spare Obama the pain of having to choose between (environmentalists and labor unions). So they’re trying everything to keep Keystone from reaching the president before the election with a series of amendments designed to kill the project.”

And so it goes. For Republicans, the Keystone is about two things America needs now: jobs and energy. But for Obama, it’s about avoiding a decision as long as he can. Never mind what’s good for country. For Obama, all that matters is what’s good for Obama.

Michael Podwill’s Viewpoints appear in The DC Post on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He is a freelance writer and a creative marketing/advertising consultant. He can be reached at mpodwill@aol.com or at M.Podwill@thedcpost.com

The Solar thing just got a little more interesting…….REALLY!
The Tonopah Solar company in Harry Reid’s Nevada is getting a $737 million loan from Obama’s DOE.
The project will produce a 110 megawatt power system and employ 45 permanent workers.
That’s costing us just $16 million per job.

One of the investment partners in this endeavor is Pacific Corporate Group (PCG). The PCG executive director is Ron Pelosi who is the brother to Nancy’s husband. Just move along folks….. “nuthin goin on here at all”.

EVERY AMERICAN SHOULD KNOW HOW THEIR MONEY IS BEING STOLEN.

Posted by B. Holden

The court’s decision in the new case holds the potential to undo an accommodation reached in the Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 decision in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger: that public colleges and universities could not use a point system to boost minority enrollment but could take race into account in vaguer ways to ensure academic diversity.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who wrote the majority opinion in Grutter, said the accommodation was meant to last 25 years.

The court’s membership has changed since 2003, most notably for these purposes with the appointment of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who replaced Justice O’Connor in 2006. Justice Alito has voted with the court’s more conservative justices in decisions hostile to the use of racial classifications by the government.

“There thus seem five votes — Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito — to overrule Grutter and hold that affirmative action programs are unconstitutional,” Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Irvine, wrote in a recent book, “The Conservative Assault on the Constitution.”

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has been particularly skeptical of government programs that take account of race. “Racial balancing is not transformed from ‘patently unconstitutional’ to a compelling state interest simply by relabeling it ‘racial diversity,’ ” he wrote, for instance, in a 2007 decision limiting the use of race to achieve integration in public schools.

Justices Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas agreed. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the court’s swing justice, was less categorical. But he has never voted to uphold an affirmative action program.

The new case, Fisher v. Texas, No. 11-345, was brought by Abigail Fisher, a white student who said she was denied admission to the University of Texas because of her race. The case has idiosyncrasies that may limit its reach, but it also has the potential to eliminate diversity as a rationale sufficient to justify any use of race in admissions decisions.

Students in the top 10 percent of Texas high schools are automatically admitted to the public university system. Ms. Fisher just missed that cutoff at her high school in Sugar Land, Tex. She sued in 2008, challenging the way the state allocated the remaining spots using a complicated system in which race plays an unquantified but significant role.

Ms. Fisher is soon to graduate from Louisiana State University. Lawyers for the University of Texas said that meant she had no standing to sue, an issue that the justices must now consider.

Ms. Fisher’s argument on the merits is that Texas cannot have it both ways. Having implemented a race-neutral program to bolster minority admissions, she says, Texas may not supplement it with a race-conscious one.

Texas officials said the additional effort was needed to make sure that individual classrooms contained a “critical mass” of minority students.

Justice Elena Kagan disqualified herself from hearing the case, presumably because she had worked on it as solicitor general. Arguments in the case will be heard during the court’s next term, which starts in October.

The aircraft is a McDonnell Douglas F-15C-35-MC Eagle. An F-15 has never been shot down in air-to-air combat. Photo Credit:Wikipedia

How important is air superiority? Since 1950, the enemy has never attacked US forces from the air. The F-15 has never been shot down in air-to-air combat, and the F-22 is by far the most dominant plane in the skies.

As a result of these defense cuts, the US will be left with around 100 combat-capable planes over the next three years.

The Obama Administration has decided to scrap the Global Hawk UAV system, which can stay on target for upwards of 32 hours, and instead wants to use the 50-year-old U-2, which can only stay on target for approximately 8 hours. Read the original article at Secure Freedom Radio

Along with him was a Mexican who was also struggling to stay afloat because of the large backpack of drugs that was strapped to his back.

If they didn’t get help, they’d surely drown.

Being a responsible Texan and abiding by the law to help those in distress, I informed the El Paso County Sheriff ‘s Office and Homeland Security.

It is now 4 PM, both have drowned, and neither authority has responded. I’m starting to think I wasted two stamps.

Posted by B. Hardin

The latest manifestation of this is Iran’s declaration that they will preemptively strike us and Israel. We at the DC Post have been screaming that it is the US that should have put them on notice that we will do this, and then describe in graphic, detailed terms how we will systematically reduce their country to where they were a thousand years ago. This message should be directed at the Iranian people, more so than their lunatic leaders. It will be up to them to “peacefully” stop their rulers from taking their country down the road to perdition. If they cannot, all that’s left is war and death for them all.

The DC Post believes that this is the only hope of averting a war. Our incompetent president hasn’t a clue about what to do, other than consistently warning our only ally in this situation, Israel, not to do anything. Easy for him to say. It’s not his kids whose lives are on the line, on the front lines.

Despite warnings from the military and civilian experts in his own administration that his sanctions won’t work, he cannot take the time to reevaluate the situation because of his singular goal of getting re-elected in November. It is exactly this type of behavior that will get him un-elected in November, but it may be a high price, in blood, for all of us to pay.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46461790/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/#.T0UMZHkpnXg

Contact me: a.caruba@thedcpost.com Follow: Facebook Twitter

I have not been kind to Ron Paul and his participation in the Republican primary campaigns and it has taken me a while to understand why he is doing this. It is clear that he wants to be around to influence the Republican platform and the issue about which he is abundantly correct is the Federal Reserve.

Anyone taking notice of Obama’s latest budget has to conclude that his mission is to crash the nation’s economy and turn America into a Socialist worker’s paradise. The only problem is that Socialism has been a dismal failure everywhere it has been tried.

One only has to look at the collapse of the Soviet Union for confirmation of that, the Chinese abandonment of Communist economic theory, and Obama’s odd notion that a nation can spend itself out of ever-increasing debt.

I am not a fan of Paul’s isolationism, but he is absolutely right about getting rid of the Federal Reserve.

Established in 1913, the same year income taxes were instituted, the Reserve is not part of the federal government. It is, in fact, privately owned by a consortium of banks and that might include foreign banks as well.

In a remarkable essay, “10 Things That Every American Should Know About The Federal Reserve” by Michael T. Snyder, it is clear that the Constitution intended to have the U.S. Treasury to be soley responsible to “coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.”

Synder points out that the Federal Reserve System (the Fed) is a privately owned banking cartel and one granted the right to create money out of thin air.

It is, says Synder “a perpetual debt machine because “whenever more money is created, more debt is created as well.” On top of its ability to create money, the government then borrows it, increasing the cost to taxpayers by way of the interest that must be paid to the Fed.

The government issues U.S. Treasury bonds with which to secure a loan from the Fed and it, in turn, sells them to others. Money from nothing; interest on that money, and earnings from the U.S. Treasury bonds it then sells!

Synder noted that in fiscal 2011 the U.S. government paid out $454 billion just in interest on the national debt. “The truth is that our current debt-based monetary system was designed by greedy bankers that wanted to make enormous profits by using the Federal Reserve as a tool to create money out of thin air and lend it to the U.S. government at interest.”

“On July 1, 1914 (a few months after the Fed was created) the U.S. national debt was $2.9 billion dollars. Today it is more than 5,000 times larger.”

If Rep. Paul can convince enough people to end the Federal Reserve Americans might actually learn how many trillions it loans to “too big to fail” Wall Street banking institutions as well as to foreign banks, generally without oversight by the Congress.

The previous Chairman of the Fed, Alan Greenspan, confessed to be totally astonished by the housing bubble that led to the 2008 financial crisis, His successor, Ben Bernanke, the current Chairman of the Fed, has been consistently wrong about the economy since taking office. In 2005 Bernanke said that housing prices had never declined on a nationwide basis and predicted full employment as far as the eye could see.

Those mysterious financial instruments, derivatives, were perfectly safe said Bernanke.

In 2008, he was still predicting housing prices would probably keep rising. In 2007 he saw no problem with the subprime mortgages that two “government sponsored entities”, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, kept pressuring banks to make. “A few months before Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsed, Bernanke said ‘The GSEs are adequately capitalized. They are in no danger of failing.’”

Any CEO or CFO with a record like that would be out on the street looking for a job. And this man is still in charge of the Federal Reserve.

The latest budget put forth by the Obama administration demonstrates the same level of incompetence and wishful thinking. “All the voters need to do is suspend belief for another nine months. And ignore the first four years,” opined The Wall Street Journal.

The budget essentially says that the government that is deeply in debt—with the size of it growing daily—has to do is to borrow and spend more! And, oh yes, Obama wants to raise taxes on everyone and everything.

While I would not vote for Rep. Paul to be President, I applaud his lonely campaign to get Americans to think about ridding the nation of the Federal Reserve and to begin exercising fiscal restraint before we become the next Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy or France.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Elizabeth Warren has made many bold statements in her run for the Massachusetts seat in the US Senate.  Warren took shots at the wealthy and corporations during a 2011 speech.  “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own, nobody. You built a factory out there—good for you! But I want to be clear.  You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for.  You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate.  You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for.  You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.  Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea—God bless. Keep a big hunk of it.  But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along”.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/elizabeth-warren-myth-class-warfare

Yet, Warren has a track record of taking the side of the corporations and against the “little guy”.  One of Warren’s past roles involved being a consultant for Travelers Insurance.  In this position Warren helped develop a strategy that would make it more difficult for claimants to collect.  This involved the companies declaring bankruptcy to avoid paying out on valid claims.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view/20220130insurance_past_should_sink_lizzy/srvc=news&position=also